• fain •

Meaning: 1. (Adverb) Happily, gladly, willingly, as in fain accept apologies. 2. (Adjective) Preferably, sooner, as in fain be dead than eat what is before me. 3. (Adjective) Obliged, obligated, as in fain to pick up some bread on the way home.

Notes: Most dictionaries claim that this word is archaic, but then one of them provides a quotation containing it from a 2002 newspaper article. Even if the word is dead today in most parts of the English-speaking world, we run into it in the literature of the 19th century. It will be difficult to breathe new life into this word even if we care to, since it stands alone in the world, a lexical orphan without any family.

In Play: If you are the sort that likes to surprise your friends, you might try saying something like this: "I would fain drink a cup of tea." Be prepared for a lot of blank faces unless you add, "Would anyone else care for a cup?" When you step out of the room, expect a stampede for the dictionary. Be sure there is one in the room before you use this word. "I would love to watch the game with you this afternoon, Fred, but I'm fain to mow the lawn." Notice that the adjective uses the preposition to; the adverb does not.

Word History: In Old English this word was fagen "glad, cheerful, happy" from a common Germanic root: compare Old Saxon fagan, Old Norse feginn "glad," and Gothic faginon "to rejoice". The trail grows cold at Proto-Germanic. We do know that Old English had a verb, fagnian, built upon fagen. By Middle English this verb had become faunen and the meaning of the verb changed from "rejoice" to "flatter", hence today's fawn. (I would fain offer a word of thanks to one of the editors of the Good Word series, Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira, for his suggestion of today's dusty but not dead Good Word.)

Fain is indeed a rarely used word. I know I have never used it and think I have nerver heard anyone use it. If it weren't for the KJV Bible, I would never have read the word. Of the prodigal son Jesus said, "And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat..." Luke 15:16.

Thanks, Luke. I had forgotten the grim hell fire ending (Modern medicine might have saved young Lord Randall) , but with your permission would fain pass on to a more light-hearted topic, the homophones, fain, feign, and fane. Most of us know the first two. I myself had never heard the third (That rhymes!) which means "temple" or "church." Not surprising, perhaps, that I had never heard the third, that is... Well, tired now, and "fain wad lie down," temporarily at least.

P.S. Had modern medicine saved young Lord Randall we would never have been able to enjoy the plaintive poem about his demise. So, belated thanks, Lord Randall. Your death was not in vein, or vane? Vain, I mean! Vain! Sorry, Lord Randall! Apparently exhibiting some latent homophonic tendencies... We all display them from time to time. Didn't President Bush ("The Lesser") ban them from the military? Anyway, I digress. Tugging back now...